Nurture Shock - In Review

Have you read Nurture Shock by PO Bronson & Ashley Merryman?  My book club chose this book to read this month and I loved it.  I thought this book was so informative, and maybe it's just the scientific/educationally-oriented part of me, but I loved that it was all based on research.  Each chapter debunks a commonly held misconception of children - about their learning, intelligence, behavior, etc. 

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Here are a few of the chapters that I found particularly fascinating:

• The Inverse Power of Praise: Sure, he's special.  But new research suggests if you tell him that, you'll ruin him.  It's a neurobiological fact.
• The Lost Hour: Around the world, children get an hour less sleep than they did 30 years ago.  The cost: IQ points, emotional well-being, ADHD, and obesity.
• Why White Parents Don't Talk About Race: Does teaching children about race and skin color make them better off or worse?
• Why Kids Lie: We may treasure honesty, but the research is clear.  Most classic strategies to promote truthfulness just encourage kids to be better liars.
• The Search For Intelligent Life In Kindergarten: Millions of kids are competing for seats in gifted programs and private schools.  Admissions officers say it's an art: new science says they're wrong, 73% of the time.

Intrigued?  So was I.   These are just a few of the topics, but I thought every chapter was so interesting.  I kept telling Joel all of these cools things I was reading about.  So much so that he probably feels like he's the one that read it.  This made me think about some of my behaviors as a parent and an educator.  I'm still in the pondering phase, but my eyes have definitely been opened to quite a few things.

If you have anything to do with children I think you would love this book- just be prepared to learn a lot.  I was surprised by some of the research findings- most of which are relatively new.  I will be interested to see if any changes are made in the educational system as a lot of these concepts become more widely discussed.